LULAC v. Perry - A Clear Explanation of the Supreme Court’s Decision on Texas Redistricting

June 29th, 2006
David

David Moon is Program Director at FairVote.

Many in the election reform world have been eagerly anticipating the outcome of the recently decided case of LULAC v. Perry (aka - The “will Tom DeLay’s re-redistricting be upheld?” Case). Since the decision is roughly 130 pages long, and chopped into four parts with four additional sub-parts - FairVote thought it might be helpful to clearly explain where the Justices stood on the issues in this case:

Part I:
Concurring: *Kennedy, Roberts, Alito
Concurring in part, dissenting in part: *Stevens, Breyer

Part II-A:
Concurring: *Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Concurring in part, dissenting in part: *Stevens, Breyer

Part II-B:
*Kennedy

Part II-C:
*Kennedy

Part II-D:
*Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg

Part III:
*Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer

Part IV:
Kennedy, Roberts, Alito

The Case:
Concurring in part, dissenting in part: *Souter, Ginsburg
Concurring in part, dissenting in part: *Breyer
Concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, dissenting in part: *Roberts, Alito
Concurring in judgment in part, dissenting in part: *Scalia, Thomas - joined by Roberts, Alito as to Part III

Note: An asterix indicates that the Justice authored the opinion.

Does that clear things up?

I didn’t think so — but redistricting is a complex issue, and heck even some of our supposedly wisest legal minds (albeit from different sides of the judicial-political spectrum) couldn’t agree on much. But this fractured ruling in part stems from the conflict in values that different redistricting approaches will have — do you value competition or having most voters represented (these are mutually exclusive under our single-member winner-take-all system). Proportional voting is the only way to lessen the impact on those values of line - drawing and let voters decide.

One thing is clear though — the only challenge that survived the Supremes was the Voting Rights Act claim (striking down one Congressional District on behalf of latino/Hispanic voters) - meanwhile, the elusive quest for standards to regulate partisan gerrymandering now seems like a fool’s errand.

Summary? — If you want to do something about this mid-decade redistricting and partisan line-rigging, the court says “talk to Congress, not us.” But FairVote welcomes that call. We’ve been advocating for national redistricting standards long before this decision came down. Rep.’s John Tanner (D-TN) and Zach Wamp (R-TN) have introduced the Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act (HR 2642 - companion bill sponsored by Sen. Tim Johnson), and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has introduced a national redistricting reform bill too. Both of these bills would ban mid-decade redistricting and bring minimal national standards to govern how lines are drawn. While this wouldn’t be a magic-bullet solution to our electoral woes (ie: lack of competition, under-representation of women and communities of color, one-party control of most districts, etc), this would at least reduce the ability of politicians to try and punish their enemies and use reapportionment for party-bossing.

More importantly, this would be a step in the direction of stronger federal regulation of our patchwork system of running elections. The variations that currently exist between state redistricting processes are vast — but it means that any one state can skew the make-up of our national “People’s House” through their redistricting process (whether it is independent or not).

So when the Supreme Court hangs up the phone on the American public, its time to pick up the phone and call your Congressional Representative next. Heck, even Nancy Pelosi’s office issued a statement responding to this case calling for national redistricting standards. I put in a call to find out which bill they were supporting and haven’t heard back yet — but I’ll be doing my part.

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2 Responses to “LULAC v. Perry - A Clear Explanation of the Supreme Court’s Decision on Texas Redistricting”

  1. 1 Rick Henderson
    October 25th, 2006 at 5:56 pm

    Each party has long sought to make single-member districts less competitive and to their advantage. Now that it becomes easier for parties to identify GOP and Democratic voters, concentrated ethnic and racial neighborhoods as well as age and income democraphics, combined with more candidate-centered politics, the time is right to establish federal redistricting laws in the spirit of compactness, community and competitiveness on issues not demographics. Remember, the Frameers wanted little to do with parties.

  2. 2 Southern Appeal » My Democratic Side
    November 9th, 2006 at 12:14 am

    [...] After revealing my undemocratic side earlier today, I now want to write about other (potentially equally impossible/impracticable) things I would love to see changed.  First and foremost, redistricting.  After the Supreme Court hopelessly fractured last year, it is clear that this issue must be, as it should be, resolved by the political branch; Congress needs to set some minimum standards regarding the drawing of districts.  Every time a state legislature changes hands now, it can redraw the districts in its state into 24-sided Rorschach inkblots so that a minority of its state can elect a majority of its representatives (c.f. CT in 2004, haven’t crunched the numbers this year).  While fairvote (linked above) offers numerous suggestions, the easiest one is to require a supermajority of state legislatures to approve plans, so that it represents a bi-partisan compromise.  Secondly, and potentially most importantly, are our schools.  Democracies require an educated citizenry; equality of opportunity is one of the core civil rights.  America spends approximately the same amount as a % of GDP on our schools as do the other leading industrialized federal democracies (Germany and Canada)  (see p. 17-18).  Unlike those other federal systems, however, far more of our funding comes from local (as opposed to regional) governments (same cite).  That allows for the massive disparities between a rich suburban practically-private school in Westchester and ones in the Bronx.  Making education funding a regional, and not local, obligation would allow for far greater equality of opportunity in schooling.  Clearly, this would only be the beginning of solving this difficult problem. PermaLink | | Trackback/Pingback (0) [...]

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